IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedpbr/y2012iq1p9-18.html

Risk and uncertainty

Author

Abstract

Many news reports and economic experts talk about uncertainty. But what does the word mean in an economic context? Specifically, what do economists have in mind when they talk about it? In this article, Pablo Guerron-Quintana discusses the concepts of risk and uncertainty, what the difference is between the two terms, and why their presence in the economy may have widespread effects. He also talks about measuring risk at the aggregate level ? that is, risk that affects all participants in the economy ? and he reviews the various types of risk measures that economists have proposed.

Suggested Citation

  • Pablo Guerrón-Quintana, 2012. "Risk and uncertainty," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Q1, pages 9-18.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpbr:y:2012:i:q1:p:9-18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/frbp/assets/economy/articles/business-review/2012/q1/brq112_risk-and-uncertainty.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. LeRoy, Stephen F & Singell, Larry D, Jr, 1987. "Knight on Risk and Uncertainty," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(2), pages 394-406, April.
    2. Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Pablo Guerron-Quintana & Juan F. Rubio-Ramirez & Martin Uribe, 2011. "Risk Matters: The Real Effects of Volatility Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2530-2561, October.
    3. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Pablo Guerrón-Quintana & Keith Kuester & Juan Rubio-Ramírez, 2015. "Fiscal Volatility Shocks and Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(11), pages 3352-3384, November.
    4. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    5. Epstein, Larry G & Wang, Tan, 1994. "Intertemporal Asset Pricing Under Knightian Uncertainty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 283-322, March.
    6. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the Business Cycle Changed and Why?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2002, Volume 17, pages 159-230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Smith, Eric & Wright, Randall, 1992. "Why Is Automobile Insurance in Philadelphia So Damn Expensive?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 756-772, September.
    8. Nicholas Bloom & Max Floetotto & Nir Jaimovich & Itay Saporta†Eksten & Stephen J. Terry, 2018. "Really Uncertain Business Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(3), pages 1031-1065, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michał Brzozowski & Grzegorz Tchorek, 2017. "Exchange Rate Risk as an Obstacle to Export Activity," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 115-141.
    2. Keith Sill, 2012. "Measuring economic uncertainty using the Survey of Professional Forecasters," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Q4, pages 16-27.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ilut, Cosmin & Saijo, Hikaru, 2021. "Learning, confidence, and business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 354-376.
    2. Anh Nguyen, 2015. "Financial frictions and the volatility of monetary policy in a DSGE model," Working Papers 75949436, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    3. Nicholas Bloom, 2014. "Fluctuations in Uncertainty," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 153-176, Spring.
    4. Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Pablo Guerron-Quintana, 2020. "Uncertainty Shocks and Business Cycle Research," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 37, pages 118-166, August.
    5. Idriss Fontaine, 2021. "Uncertainty and Labour Force Participation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(2), pages 437-471, April.
    6. Ying Tung Chan, 2019. "The Environmental Impacts and Optimal Environmental Policies of Macroeconomic Uncertainty Shocks: A Dynamic Model Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-26, September.
    7. Chan, Ying Tung & Dong, Yilin, 2022. "How does oil price volatility affect unemployment rates? A dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    8. Chikhale, Nisha, 2023. "The effects of uncertainty shocks: Implications of wealth inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    9. Xu, Qinhua & Fu, Buben & Wang, Bin, 2022. "The effects of oil price uncertainty on China’s economy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    10. Saygin Sahinoz & Evren Erdogan Cosar, 2020. "Quantifying uncertainty and identifying its impacts on the Turkish economy," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 365-387, May.
    11. Montes-Galdón, Carlos & Ajevskis, Viktors & Brázdik, František & Garcia, Pablo & Gatt, William & Lima, Diana & Mavromatis, Kostas & Ortega, Eva & Papadopoulou, Niki & De Lorenzo, Ivan & Kolb, Benedikt, 2024. "Using structural models to understand macroeconomic tail risks," Occasional Paper Series 357, European Central Bank.
    12. Stefano Fasani & Haroon Mumtaz & Lorenza Rossi, 2023. "Monetary Policy and Firm Dynamics," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 47, pages 278-296, January.
    13. Jerow, Sam & Wolff, Jonathan, 2022. "Fiscal policy and uncertainty," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    14. Marcelo Ochoa, 2013. "Volatility, labor heterogeneity and asset prices," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2013-71, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Llosa, Luis Gonzalo & Pérez-Forero, Fernando J. & Tuesta, Vicente, 2025. "Uncertainty shocks and financial conditions in Latin-American countries," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    16. Martin Seneca, 2020. "Risk Shocks and Monetary Policy in the New Normal," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 16(6), pages 185-232, December.
    17. Kimberly A. Berg & Nam T. Vu, 2021. "Asymmetric effects of sectoral shifts under low and high uncertainty," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 1149-1171, July.
    18. Jongrim Ha & Seohyun Lee & Inhwan So, 2022. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks: Evidence from Geopolitical Swings on the Korean Peninsula," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(1), pages 21-56, February.
    19. Lastauskas, Povilas & Nguyen, Anh Dinh Minh, 2023. "Global impacts of US monetary policy uncertainty shocks," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    20. Segal, Gill, 2019. "A tale of two volatilities: Sectoral uncertainty, growth, and asset prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 110-140.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedpbr:y:2012:i:q1:p:9-18. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Beth Paul (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbphus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.